It looked like UC Davis had the game won on two separate occasions, yet the Aggies left the game with a 4-3 loss to the Golden Bears.
The tough loss began with some early chances for UC Davis. California scored first, however, when a counter attack turned into a two-on-one break and a goal for Megan Shimojima.
Giving up an early goal is nothing new for the Aggies.
“We tend to allow teams to penetrate our territory early in games,” coach Vianney Campos said. “It’s something we’ve been working on but we let it happen again.”
UC Davis answered in the first half with a goal from freshman forward Cloey LemMon, and the game went to intermission tied at one.
Late in the second half the fireworks started.
The Aggies dominated the scoring chances in the second half, and finally broke through when sophomore Nadia Namdari took a pass from sophomore Emily Mecke and put it in the goal with just 10 minutes to play.
The way the Aggies had been dominating to that point, it seemed like they would surely get the victory. Cal answered, however, just a few minutes later, and tied the game at two with just over seven minutes left.
Still, UC Davis kept their heads up, confident they could find the back of the net once more.
“We knew that we could score again,” Campos said. “There was no doubt that we could score a third.”
The third goal came just three minutes later when sophomore Marissa Hughes put the ball in the net to give the Aggies the lead.
Again it seemed that UC Davis would surely win.
The Aggies held the lead all the way down to the final minute of the game, but a questionable officiating decision gave the Golden Bears a penalty corner with 30 seconds left to play.
Cal capitalized with a shot from Claire Dougherty, sending the game into overtime.
Despite dominating the extra period, the Aggies were unable to score on a few early chances, and the Golden Bears scored on a breakaway in the 75th minute to end the game.
It was a rough loss for UC Davis.
“It’s pretty tough,” Hughes said. “We played better than them and we went all out, but they got some lucky goals.”
Even though the game goes in the standings as a loss, the Aggies are putting a positive spin on it.
“Ultimately in our books it was a win,” Campos said. “It was a successful game for us and hopefully we can carry our momentum into the next game.”
UC Davis will next play against Stanford on Saturday at Aggie Stadium.
TREVOR CRAMER can be reached at sports@theaggie.org.
